


The Dancing Queen

by Ash0605



Category: Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS (Video Game), Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: Dancing, Everyone Is Gay, Flirting, Gen, I love AiKarin and EmmaKarin, Karin is a queen we stan, Tags Are Hard, so I chose both
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24978286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ash0605/pseuds/Ash0605
Summary: As her birthday rolls around, Karin pays another visit to the dancing game at the local arcade. She is determined to perfect her score, and won't stop until she does it, dies of dehydration or exhaustion or bankrupts the Nijigasaki School Idol Club (or 2 members of it, to be more accurate).Happy Birthday Karin!
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	The Dancing Queen

The atmosphere of the arcade was overwhelming. An armada of arcade cabinets utilized flashing lights and catchy tunes to attract customers and their coinage. Contributing to this sensory overload was the large amount of people present, which also had the added side effect of making it difficult to move around. It would have been a nightmare for newcomers, but the three girls who had just entered knew exactly where they were going and made a beeline for the back of the arcade.

Karin negotiated the queues of people as she quickly made her way to her destination. Her friends Ai and Emma followed closely, trying their best not to get left behind. The hurried pace of the trio ceased when they reached their destination.

Despite retaining the lively atmosphere of the other areas, the back of the arcade was more obscure, only containing one machine and a soft drinks vendor. The singular machine was the one Karin was looking for; a dancing game called ‘ _Dance Dance Revolution_ ’.

Karin had discovered this game on an outing with Yuu two months ago. It was a fast-paced rhythm game played by stepping on 4 arrow labelled panels on its base. Since then, she had turned perfecting it into a side hobby of sorts. Her usual style of dancing was slow, deliberate, and sultry, but the pace demanded by this game was fast-paced and frantic. It was a good opportunity to try learning a new style.

As it was her birthday today, she hoped that she could enlist the ~~financial support~~ emotional support of her friends in her attempts. The group might have had other plans for the day, but Karin was hell bent on mastering her score and she wouldn’t stop until she did it, died of dehydration or exhaustion or bankrupted the Nijigasaki School Idol Club (Or more accurately, 2 members of said club).

“Is this the machine you were talking about?”, Emma questioned loudly. She was leaning slightly towards Karin, cupping her hands around her mouth to mimic a megaphone in order to make her voice audible.

Karin nodded, but didn’t say anything in reply. She instead removed her heels and positioned herself standing on the base of the machine, very much eager to start.

“You look raring to go Karin-chan!”, Ai called enthusiastically. While Emma was somewhat struggling with the noise of the environment, Ai was as lively as her surroundings. “Don’t let us keep you waiting!”

Karin looked back over her shoulder, giving her friends a sly smile.

“I don’t intend to. Make sure you keep those eyes on me, I’m going to put on a show.”

“Drop the formalities! Get those feet movin’!”, Ai fired back, clapping her hands to further emphasize her impatience. Karin didn’t need telling twice as she inserted a coin and started the music.

Karin spent most of her time in and out of club hours perfecting her slow and sultry routine. Hence, the first attempt of any dance session was usually the weakest, instead being spent readjusting to the fast pace of the song. That being said, Karin finished with a respectable score, posing with one hand on her hips and the other hand pointed to the sky for extra style points.

She turned back to her audience. Emma was applauding enthusiastically, a faint red painting her cheeks. In contrast, Ai was pretend booing, giving Karin two thumbs downs while wearing a devilish grin.

Emma’s slight blush didn’t go unnoticed by Karin, but she decided that Ai was the priority for now.

“Oh? Did you not enjoy my performance Ai?”, Karin questioned. She started moving slowly towards Ai, swaying her hips as she walked.

“Not really! You didn’t put your left leg in or your left leg out!”, Ai replied. She was mostly oblivious to Karin’s flirting, but that only made things more fun. “If you don’t do that you can’t shake it all about!”

Karin didn’t stop approaching Ai until she was face to face with her. She smiled sweetly before leaning in close to her ear. 

“I guess I’ll have to give you an especially stimulating performance.”, Karin murmured, her voice dripping with honeyed words.

“Get on with it then!”, Ai cheered. Karin drew back from Ai’s face slowly and deliberately at first, but then returned quickly to the machine to start another attempt. She hadn’t taken much notice of Emma, whose blush had intensified after the exchange.

Her second attempt was much stronger, now attuned to the fast-paced style. She was consistent throughout the song and her score was better than next time, but she still made a few mistakes. A wrong foot here. The wrong speed used there. It was good, but not good enough.

Karin didn’t hesitate before starting for a third time, paying no attention to the praise coming from her friends. It was the zenith of every attempt made so far. Or at least, it would have been if Karin hadn’t stumbled towards the end of the song. She instinctively grasped the handrail to stop herself collapsing onto the floor, and she could sense her friends approaching her as the song ended.

“Karin-chan! Are you alright?”, Emma queried firmly. She grabbed Karin’s arms to reinforce her balance. “You have to stop playing, at least for now.”

“Don’t push yourself!”, Ai commanded, steadying Karin by grabbing her waist. “Dancing is good for the soul, but not always good for your soles.”

Karin didn’t react to anything around her, let alone Ai’s pun, as she let her friends guide her away from the machine. They stayed supporting her for a few more seconds as she snapped out of her stupor.

“You seem a lot better now”, Emma said, handing a bottle of water to Karin. Karin took a lengthy swig as she recollected her thoughts. She turned to look at Emma, whose azure eyes were shining with concern for her friend.

“I’m going again. I know I can get it right this time.”, Karin announced stubbornly. Her friends quickly grabbed her before she could start walking towards the machine.

“No, you aren’t.”, reprimanded Emma. “Not after that stumble.”, Her face was stern and unamused. Karin was quite familiar with this look. It was the look Emma gave her siblings when they acted out of line.

“Take a break! There looks to be a two-player option, so me and Emma-chan will have a turn!”, Ai insisted to Emma’s surprise. Ai grabbed Emma by her hand and rushed up to the machine before Karin could protest.

Karin was left behind to put her hands on her hips and sulk. It was a childish of her, but she was more irritated at herself than she was at her friends. She knew she could have done it.

Karin distracted herself from her nagging thoughts by spectating the performers. Ai was the clear winner of the two, having no trouble keeping her feet moving with the beat. Her playing was unrefined, but that was to be expected considering it was her first time playing (At least it was to Karin’s knowledge). On the other hand, Emma was really struggling to keep up. Like Karin, she was used to a slower style of dancing, and the frantic pace was really catching her off guard. Her large bust created a burden that she had learned to deal with as a school idol but couldn’t handle in this situation.

By the time the pair were concluded, Karin had gotten over her less than perfect performances. She could always try again another time, and there were more important things to work herself to the bone for, such as her school idol work.

Karin applauded her friends as they moved away from the machine and back towards her. Emma was way more exhausted then Ai was, placing her hands on her knees and hunching down in an attempt to support herself. Karin moved in and put her hands around her waist to support her.

“You two did pretty good! Colour me impressed!”, Karin cheered, handing her bottle of water to Emma.

“Thank you Karin-chan! I don’t think I can go for another like you can though, you’re a dancing queen!”, Ai responded wearily. “Besides, I know an old saying, when the line dancers get exhausted, they look for a place to line down!”. This elicited a groan from the other two.

“I did it… but…”, Emma stammered, struggling for breath, “I didn’t do… very well though.”

“You think so? I think you did splendid.”, Karin reassured. She felt herself crack a smile as she leaned in closer to Emma.

“In fact, do you want to know a secret? I love girls who can work up a sweat.”, She murmured. She felt Emma’s face start to glow red.

“Huh… I d-didn’t know t-that!”, Emma spluttered.

“Do you want to know what else excites me?”, Karin cooed, leaning in close to Emma. “We both drank out of that bottle, so is that an in-di-rect kiss~?”

“KARIN!”, Emma exclaimed, trying to shove her away. Karin chuckled softly and drew back from Emma.

“That was really fun guys, you both did great! Should we go elsewhere?”, Karin questioned. Ai nodded enthusiastically in response.

“Let’s go girls! Your birthday is still young! I think we should go somewhere that’s more along Emma-chan’s wavelength.”

“I agree. Didn’t you mention you wanted to visit a zoo?”, Emma queried, her face lighting up at the opportunity to move to a quieter place.

“I did! I believe it’s a station away from here.”, A childish smile formed on Karins face. She had been looking forward to going to the zoo all week and getting lost wouldn’t stop her this time.

“Let’s get going then! I’ll lead on.”, Emma declared as she began to lead the group out of the arcade.

Karin and Ai followed on in excitement, though Karin’s excitement was unmatchable. She had been wanting to see the pandas for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't choose between the wholesome roommate couple or the subunit power couple, so I chose both! I want all three of them to hold hands. The process of writing this has really helped endear Karin's character to me, so I hope this does her justice.
> 
> Thank you for reading! All feedback and comments are greatly appreciated!
> 
> I hope you have a good rest of your day! I wish you the best in staying safe.


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